Australia’s Nathan Lyon spun a web that caught the India’s batsmen on the wrong foot on the second day of the Delhi Test to leave the game tantalizingly poised. We’ll have live scores and commentary from 3.00pm AEDT.

Grabbing five wickets in the day, four of which came in a 21-over spell from the South Australia off-spinner, Lyon brought Australia back on level terms in the game after India’s new opening pair had threatened to take the game away from the visitors.

Interestingly it also came on a day when the Australian side showed on-field aggression that was a throwback to their dominating years, something that was conspicuous by its absence in the first three games. It will be no different come the second innings.

Chasing Australia’s 262 in the first innings, India had gotten themselves to 0/108 before Lyon reeled out those overs and grabbed four of the first five wickets to fall.

There were half-centuries for Murali Vijay and make-shift opener Cheteshwar Pujara before the fightback came on the back of a spell that mesmerised the Indians.

The pitch had a lot to do how Lyon went, of course, but that would be under-rating the bowler to a great extent.

That he managed to get the speeds and lines and lengths right for the track was a huge plus in itself but more vitally he made survival on the wicket an arduous task for a side that relishes taking on spinners like Lyon.

Sachin Tendulkar, for instance, could have been given out lbw twice before he finally fell to Lyon – lbw again.

Before that, a well-set Pujara had failed to read a delivery from Lyon that did not spin and beat his outside edge but not the stumps.

Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and R Ashwin – the last wicket off the final delivery of the day – had all been picked to deliveries that were difficult, if not impossible to play, in other words, they weren’t unforced errors from the batsmen.

That said, India will enter the third day of the game with a slender lead of four under their belt and a small matter of the last two wickets in hand.

While Bhuvneshwar Kumar can still hold the bat, the combination of some good spin and pace on this brute of a pitch could be too much for numbers ten and jack, Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha.

Still, in Lyon’s own words, this is a pitch where chasing anything over 150 in the fourth innings could result in a lot of heartaches for the home fans:

“If we can get the last two Indian wickets quickly Sunday morning and then put on about 150-200 runs in the second innings we can put India under pressure.”

If Lyon’s to be believed we could well have a result on the third day itself. But one way or the other the game, and hence the series, may not last too much into the fourth day.

This could also imply that if by the dint of some excellent counter-attacking batting the last two Indian wickets could raise the lead to over 50, Australia would be left with a lot to do in the second innings.

Conversely a quick cleanup operation at the start of the day before a smashing session for Australia could raise hopes of registering their first win in the country since 2004.

Live coverage of the game begins from 3.00pm AEDT on Sunday and you can add your opinion in the comments section below.

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The Crowd Says (525) | Page 1 of Comments

They tried to pull the Management Consulting wool on our faces, so lets talk in those terms. Losing 4 straight sets by huge margins is akin to management losing 4 multi-billion accounts. Heads must roll. Fire Arthur and Inverarity NOW! Clarke should be put on notice and he is not mature enough to be a selector. Demote him from the selection panel. Bring in some guys everybody respects. ENOUGH!

They will find an excuse to not take Khawaja to the ashes. I think they may create a situation to disqualify him from any cricket. Because they dont want him scoring runs elsewhere. Just wait and see. I believe it is highly unlikely Khawaja gets another game.

Thanks Michael Clarke first Australian Captain to lose a series via a whitewash since Bill Lawry 43 years ago in South Africa 😉 Lets not forget that record you set this series as the first Captain in the history of Test cricket to declare in the first innings of a match and then go on to lose that match by an innings.

Hopefully there will be massive fall out from this series. We have a top order that apart from Clarke is barely up to test standard. If conditions aren’t exactly how they like it then its limp capitulation. Hopefully someone will pull the pin on the grenade for this team and set up before the Ashes as very few deserve to survive the blast.

We won all the toss, batted first in all and lost all the matches.Its really shame, No positive from this tour expect smith was good to some extent and Khawaja given he never played a match. How Khawaja wasn’t played is not acceptable. And as for the Indian team they seem to be settling finally post retirement/exit of greats. Pool of openers in Vijay, Dhawan, Mukund, Jaffer and Gambhir. Middle order – Pujara, Kohli, Tewary (yet to debut), Tendulkar, Raina / Yuvraj? Keepers Dhoni, Patel, Saha & Karthik. Fast bowlers – Yadav, Aaron, Sharma, Seamers – Kumar, Dinda and Spinners Ashwin, Ojha, Mishra / Chawla and H Singh. They will have sterner tests to prove their mettle in fast and bouncy tracks abroad though.

I am disappointed at the poor sportsmanship from a team that has been soundly thrashed. To add insult to injury, Usman Khawaja, a specialist Test batsman was left out to T20 hackers- so much for our motto of “A fair go?” This in a team that that consistently failed in the batting department.Perhaps some skin lightening cream is in order…what’s the point of having a minister for multi-cultural affairs?? We have lost 7 test matches in a row in india turf, not acceptable.

One thing came out of this series, India have a shockingly good top order now, even with Sehwag, Dravid, Laxmann and probably Tendulkar gone the top four of Vijay, Dhawan, Pujara and Kohli is formidable. I wouldn’t fancy bowling at them without serious assistance from the wicket.

Is this Australian batting line up an April Fools Joke? Where are the batsmen? I can only count four batsmen in the team. Surely there are two other batsmen in Australia somewhere? Why is Khawaja not playing?We are picking “all-rounders” who can’t bat or bowl. Lyon proved me wrong, hats of to him, and Siddle top scoring in both innings is absolutely not acceptable. And i personally think Clarke should have hung around till the end of the match so he could answer the difficult questions

Whichever of the 5-man NSP first mentioned Glenn Maxwell’s name for a test squad position needs to fired. No questions, no ifs, no buts, even if it is Clarke. Whoever made that suggestion has no idea at all about cricket.

I think Pup will stay on as captain. Interesting in the Argus Review, now that needs to be questioned to as a competent review.

All the ex test captains all said they wanted or believed the captain should be a selector so food for thought on that point, i think it’s been a faiiure that 4t or 5th selector as the captain. Causes to much division.

No problem with the Captain and Coach being a selector, they were selectors on tours before the Argus review anyway. They should just be match day selectors is all. Three selectors pick the squad and A selector, the captain and the coach pick the team. 17 man squad showed too many voices in the squad meeting and no one convincing the other they were wrong, then they get to India and they have to wrong squad make up because they all wanted a certain player in the squad and left the players they needed out. It was probably, Invers wanted Maxwell and Clarke wanted Smith, Marsh wanted Henriques and Bichel wanted Johnson, Arthur wanted Doherty and O’Keefe got left at home.

Khawaja played with Katich but i don’t think he was his mentor, in any event i don’t think Clarke has anythign against Khawaja, its Arthur and it needs to stop now as Khawaja deserves his chance. India have found 2 rock solid players who will be carrying our batting in the future , hats off to pujara and kohli , 2 class players in the making , wonder if Sachin has played his last game.

Amith just my view and hope you don’t take offence but It is time for the BCCI to stop milking the sachin cow. Let him retire with his average still good enough to be termed great. As it is he now has scored 15837 runs off 327 innings, for a mean of 48.4 runs per innings, and it is dropping every time he comes out to bat. Time for the great man to retire

Ponting had been under huge pressure by everyone for years. Its no wonder he is top of the tree domestically, he is free at last ! We should be begging him to come back for one last ashes, right now we couldn’t do any worse

You are right we don’t have any options. Clarke deserves a crack at the Poms but unfortunately I don’t see him doing any good with the team at his disposal. The reason I want to get rid of Clarke is that he is a poor man manager as seen by this series. Also I think he has had a hand in keeping alternative captain material out of the side. Bailey should have gone to India as the No 6 batsman rather than the stupid all rounder options. . Its hypothetical how he would have gone but it was a perfect time to bring some experience into the side with Hussey retiring. Also he leans towards lousy players who he likes, maybe with Arthurs help,.. I think Clarke is going to prove to be a dead loss as captain unfortunately he and the selectors have manufactured a situation where he can’t be replaced except by Watson who shouldn’t be in the side IMO- nice job done there boys really good effort! Hopes or Bailey should come in at no6, it would give us some steel in the middle order and give us captaincy options. We could be in a complete melt down crisis in 12 months if we don’t have options.